Authorities in India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago say reconstruction will be delayed in some of the islands worst hit by the tsunami.
Nearly 2,500 people died when the tsunami struck the islands in December and more than 5,000 are still missing.
Some 40,000 people are still living in relief camps.
But the army commander overseeing the rehabilitation process says the task to rebuild some of the islands is proving too difficult.
Lt Gen Aditya Singh told journalists the army had decided to put off reconstruction work in six remote islands in the Nicobar chain where logistics are difficult and resources are scarce.
"We only needed carpentry tools with which we can construct our own shelters within two months"
"Their populations are being shifted to neighbouring islands," the army commander said.
The local administration has started building more than 10,000 temporary prefabricated shelters for the tens of thousands of people still living in relief camps.
The BBC's Subir Bhaumik in the Andaman Islands says many of them are desperate to move out of the camps before the monsoon arrives in mid-April.
"If people had the chance they would go home tomorrow, but the government says shelters will be built here and we have to stay one more year," Moses Israel told Reuters.
He was evacuated from his island of Pilomillow and now lives in a relief camp for Nicobarese tribals in Great Nicobar.
Gigantic task
Lt Gen Singh says the logistics for such a large-scale rehabilitation exercise was proving to be "a nightmare".
"It is a task of a scale so gigantic that it is beyond imagination," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
He said nearly 250,000 iron sheets have been shipped to the islands but a large number of relief workers were seriously injured while carrying them by canoe from the ships because most of the jetties are damaged.
Local tribes people also say they are unwilling to stay in metal houses because they will be too hot in the summer, are difficult to repair and will not hold up against cyclones.
"We only needed carpentry tools with which we can construct our own shelters within two months," a local tribal leader, Rashid Yusuf, told the BBC.
Relief officials say the rehabilitation and reconstruction operations needed to be streamlined and tailored to the islanders' needs.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie more than 1,200km (800 miles) off the Indian mainland.
Access to many of the islands is limited because of what India says is a policy to protect the local indigenous tribes from external influence.
India also has a major military presence in the islands which lie strategically close to Burma and Thailand.
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